Now You Know
by RemedyChill
Summary: The two greatest (and lost) secrets of the Klingon Empire are revealed to Tom and B'elanna during thier encounter with the Delta Quadrant Klingons.


Don't You Know?  
  
A Star Trek Voyager Story  
  
"Please?" The woman said again.  
  
"I'll see what I can do." Tom Paris surrendered.  
  
"I promise." The woman replied "Your wife will not be disappointed." Then she smiled to reveal her pointed Klingon teeth and sauntered back down toward the end of the hall. Where, of course, Tom had no doubt she would remain until she had been given a chance to speak her mind.  
  
Tom keyed the lock and entered his quarters. Soft and tranquil music filled the room.  
  
"Honey, I'm home!" Tom called out as the door swooshed shut behind him.  
  
B'elanna smiled. She had heard all of Tom's beloved television sayings before, but there was something very personal and comic in hearing him deliver them live for what was mostly his own amusement.  
  
"I'm in the bedroom." She called back. "Tough day at the office?" She prompted.  
  
"Not really. Traffic on the way home was brutal though.  
  
"Urhg." B'elanna grunted. "Is that woman still waiting in the hall?"  
  
"Yes." Tom admitted "And I think you should just grant her an audience and be done with it already."  
  
B'elanna looked disgusted.  
  
"You do want her to leave with the rest of the Klingons, right? I mean, you wouldn't want her to stay here just for a chance to talk to you or our little unborn savior there, now would you?"  
  
And a light of dark possibility seemed to twinkle behind her eyes. "You don't think. . ."  
  
"She's been out there for two days now. I don't know if she's left to eat or sleep, so I don't know if. . ."  
  
But that was enough.  
  
"Show her in." B'elanna said, struggling to sit up and then to her feet.  
  
Tom smiled sympathetically. With everything they had been through since meeting with the Delta Quadrant Klingons and their unborn child becoming the unborn savior by providing the cure for the disease they carried, B'elanna was now more at peace and more frustrated than ever with her own Klingon heritage.  
  
The woman was gracious and formal. She smiled and joined Tom and B'elanna around their table.  
  
"We left the empire long ago. It was my house and family that provided the wealth to fortify the expedition." She explained. "And I have come to share with you the story that my house hands down in secret for every generation to remember until the end of time."  
  
The woman produced a data pad. "This image is from Voyager's records. The human in the picture is James T. Kirk." She said the name so that it sounded Klingon. "The men in the gold shirts are Klingons."  
  
Tom leaned in closer to the pad. "They don't really look Klingon." He observed.  
  
"Indeed." She agreed. "Our scientist called them Kli'Novus. New-Klingons. They were an attempt to create Klingons who could pass as Earthers."  
  
"Infiltration operatives." B'elanna concluded.  
  
"The very first Klingon-Human hybrids." The woman nodded. "Raised in the Klingon Manner of the day and educated to despise and distrust Earth yet genetically disposed to infiltrate and seize power."  
  
"What happened?" Tom prompted.  
  
"A few of the more trusted hybrids were given light duties within the project, and as problems arose, more and more of them were tapped to function as needed. It wasn't long however before it became obvious that the New Klingons were creating problems who's solutions involved positioning the hybrids to seize more and more power." The woman saw the sparkle of enlightenment form in B'elanna's eyes.  
  
"They despised Earth? Raised as Klingons?" She sat back in her chair and laid a hand over her unborn child. "But were genetically disposed toward infiltration and conquest?"  
  
Tom wasn't sure where this was headed.  
  
"They tried to take over the empire, didn't they?" B'elanna concluded.  
  
"No." The woman smiled "They did take over the empire."  
  
Tom's jaw dropped.  
  
"This man with Kirk is a Captain. The others are his crew." She smiled. "This is why we left. The real reason we left. The empire was becoming humanized and the result was a more Romulan version of the Klingon ideal." She sighed. "It was either this, to leave, or to stay and attempt to survive the purification."  
  
"Purification?" Tom sounded horrified under his calm smooth tone.  
  
"We opted to leave because we knew that the empire would never be as it was. We could however, in one generation, leave and forget what had happened to our culture and our people, and raise our children in the old ways." The woman cast her eyes down for a moment; her hard muscled body seemed to hang heavily for the first time since she entered the room. "And they did, both leave and raise their children to be Klingons of tradition and heritage." Her voice was a whisper now.  
  
"What happened?" Tom asked. "What about the Purification?"  
  
"I don't know what unfolded after our people left. Only what was planned." She raised her eyes solemnly to B'elanna's forehead ridges. "Although it must have worked."  
  
"What worked?" B'elanna pushed.  
  
"We, the original Klingons have redundant organs and body systems. The hybrids did not."  
  
"So you poisoned them?" Tom ventured.  
  
"No." The woman smiled. "We believed poison to be dishonorable. Instead the Purification was to be a challenge. A test for both the old and new Klingons alike."  
  
"Winner take all, hunh?" B'elanna added.  
  
"An apt expression. "The woman smiled. "The traditional Klingons of the day sent for a herd of great beasts - all of them two stories tall covered in teeth and able to breath fire - and they turned these beasts loose upon Kronos to destroy all but the strongest Klingons." She pursed her lips. "And it is these - the strongest of all Klingons - that you are now descended from."  
  
She smiled and rose from the table. "I wanted only to tell you, so that you may tell your child. You are not alone. You, if you pardon me, as Hybrids, are a strong people. You have cured us now and overthrown empires in the distant past. You have a history and a culture of your own, and you need conform to neither Human nor Klingon ideals. You are your own people, more than any other, and you should find great pride in that."  
  
"Thank you." B'elanna said "I will remember and tell my child what you have said today."  
  
The Klingon woman smiled, genuinely pleased with herself, and rose, turning to leave.  
  
"Wait." Tom said, catching the woman before she opened the door, "Please, what were the great beasts called? The ones who breathed fire and were covered with teeth?"  
  
"We do not speak their name for fear of attracting them - but for your child and for history I will speak the name this day - but may they find you instead of me - " She grinned slyly at that last comment before growling out her final words "They are called Tribbles!" She hissed and with a nod she slipped out the door and was gone. 


End file.
